Longtime FR friend Ward Connerly penned the following commentary to explain to FR readers why he endorsed Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner for Governor…

Why I Support Steve Poizner By Ward Connerly I love California, but if I were not already a resident of this state, I would not be tempted to relocate here. Taxes are too high. We have been unable to control unbridled immigration – legal and illegal, the result of which is a… Read More

As a freshman legislator, it’s astounding to me how many times I’ve already come across scenarios in which common sense has failed to prevail. The latest is so aggravating, that I feel compelled to share.

AB35XXX was just put on “Suspense” by a vote of 7-5, with every Democrat voting for the Suspense motion, and every Republican voting against. The bill would have saved taxpayer dollars while minimizing the impact in the summer-break of the kids and parents who are being punished for a minor mistake made by Chino Valley Unified. The district miscalculated a few minutes in their bell schedule, forcing a few schools to extend their school year by 34 extra days…which in turn forced students and parents to cancel summer plans, vacations, camps, etc. This bill would have minimized the impact of that error.

The fact that the bill was put on the Senate Appropriations’ “Suspense File” only surprises me a little bit; after all this is not the first time that a common sense piece of legislation has been… Read More

Nothing surprises me anymore. Including the findings from a recent study that shows AB 32 (the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) will impose staggering costs on California families, workers and small businesses.

The study, conducted by Sanjay Varshney, dean at Sac State’s College of Business Administration, finds that when the plan is fully implemented, "California families will be facing increased annual costs of $3,857 …"

Let me repeat that: Your family and mine will shell out an additional Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Seven Dollars annually. How many families are in the position to bear the burden of such a substantial increase in living expenses? Not many. Furthermore, how many families are willing to spend money on a law like AB 32 that is founded on mythical claims?

The study also found that California’s job loss will top one million and the total gross state output by small businesses will decrease by 10 percent. In other words, AB 32 gives small… Read More

I’d guess that a few readers of the Flashreport flip straight to the blog page in the morning, me among them. One opinion piece, written by Orange County Congressman Ed Royce, is an example of why the front page is worth reading. Congressman Royce’s column addresses TARP repayments, and the attempt by Congressional Democrats to siphon some of this money off to organizations like ACORN. In effect, this siphoning amounts to patronage for leftist ‘nonprofits’ that are another wing of the Democrat machine… taxpayers paying to help the Democrats maintain a majority. It’s a ‘must read’ – click back to the homepage and rub your eyes on it.… Read More

I am not going to tear into any particular legislation in this brief blog-rant, but in the last few weeks, as I have reached out to Republican legislators to ask them why they have authored, support, or have voted for legislation that increases regulation on a particular business or industry — I have heard the same excuse back — "The industry wants this regulation."

You know what I have to say to that excuse? Tough beans for them. Just because representatives from a particular type of businesses want to be regulated does not mean that they should be. Legislators should take into account factual information about the effects of regulations into account when examining a bill, but the number one question that should always be asked when considering a potential regulation is this: "Is this regulation absolutely necessary?"

In many cases, when "industry leaders" are looking for regulation of their own industry, it is for self-serving reasons. Perhaps it is to impose standards which they like but which then stifle competition as it may keep others who may not meet the same standards from taking some of their… Read More

Question: What is significant about this amount of money? $15,000,000.00. Answer: According to the British Government, that is the cost of one of Queen Elizabeth’s two Golden Jubilee Bentley state limousines.

Second Answer: According to a campaign release, that is the amount of money that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has added to her campaign coffers today in the form of one large campaign contribution.

Whitman had already dropped a cool $4 million into her own campaign, bringing the total of self-funding to a staggering $19 million. Add to this her impressive haul of $6.7 million from donations and that makes for a lot of green stuff.

Whitman’s wealthy primary opponent, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, has put over $4 million of his own into his campaign account, and raised another $1.2 on top of that.

Before you let these numbers glaze your eyes — based on the net worth of the candidates, and how badly each wants to be Governor of California… Read More

As the latest budget stalemate continues, IOUs and BBB credit ratings are popular topics of conversation in California. In fact, while waiting for a table in the bar of my favorite local restaurant Friday night, nearly everyone I talked to asked what I know about those state issues and what I think is going to happen.

I said I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that in February, all of the Democrats and a few Republicans figured higher government revenues would result from the largest state tax increase in U.S. history. And four months later, Controller John Chiang announced that tax receipts were $1 billion lower than projected. Chiang was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “[the legislature] must craft a new budget that recognizes California’s recovery has yet to begin.”

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer announced on CNBC on July 6 that California “should be able to pay its IOUs back in October.” Note the word “should,” coming from a guy who has a fiduciary duty to instill maximum confidence in California’s creditworthiness. One bond-rating service even lowered California’s bond rating to… Read More

Last we checked, Monday is a "work day" for full-time legislators. Also, last we checked, the state is still dealing with a massive budget short-fall that is only going to be fixed by legislative action — which is needed, like, yesterday.

If you looked around the building today for a meeting of the Fab Five (OK, that’s "Big 5" in Capitol parlance) — you won’t find one.

The Governor’s around. The Senate Republican Leader is around. The Assembly Speaker is around. The Assembly Republican Leader is around.

But someone is missing…

Who could it be?

Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg has DISAPPEARED. Rumor has it that he isn’t even in California.

WHERE’S DARRELL?… Read More